


A Devil Went Down to Gotham

by funkydeadpool



Category: Batman - Fandom, daredevil - Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-06-27 04:03:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19782871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funkydeadpool/pseuds/funkydeadpool
Summary: Matt Murdock went to Gotham to bring down Bruce Wayne. He never knew that he'd be the one to replace Batman.





	1. Welcome to Gotham

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on fanfiction.net but I will mostly be updating now on here

Matt Murdock began to second guess himself. There weren't many cities in the world that could claim to be more corrupt than New York. Gotham was one of those few cities. New York had its fair share of crazies. But Gotham had a reputation that made New York look like a paradise by comparison.

Matt wasn't worried about his own safety. He had handled enough costumed madmen to know what to expect from Gotham. No, what truly worried him was his lack of understanding of the city that he was moving to. New York, for all its faults, had more than a dozen different heroes to defend it. Between Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Luke Cage, and several others, New York had a plethora of protectors. But Gotham only had one protector to speak of, and he had reportedly been missing for almost a dozen weeks. This meant that Gotham had become a wild west for crime.

With no Batman to be afraid of the criminals had emerged from their shadows to reclaim what the Bat had taken from them. With Batman's absence, new heroes had to emerge to take his place. These heroes were not the costumed kind. Rather, they were regular people who simply wanted their city to return to some state of normalcy.

Matt had seen it on the news long before he was contacted by one such hero by phone. The hero in question, a man by the name of Harvey Dent, achieved national fame when he took on Gotham's biggest white-collar criminal single-handedly in court. The Falcone versus Dent case was the type of legal battle that caused lawyers across the country to glue their eyes to their televisions. Matt was even amazed at the case. Matt had taken the Kingpin to court, and even that seemed tame by comparison.

Dent not only took on the Falcone boss in court, but he also won. Within a few nights, the mob boss was behind bars and humiliated, and Dent had immediately become Gotham's biggest target. More than likely every scumbag with a violent streak heard of the massive price on Dent's head. But instead of backing down Dent doubled on his defiance. Dent used threats to his advantage. His defiance to Gotham's criminal underground gave him a celebrity status that most lawyers weren't used to.

One night, shortly after his own battle in court with a kingpin named Wilson Fisk, Matt was contacted by phone from Dent. Matt initially thought it was a prank call. He mistook it to be a trick from his friend Foggy. Matt asked himself, why would a Gothamite "hero" like Dent bother with a broke New York slum lawyer like me?

Apparently, his courtroom rumble with Fisk made Matt famous to the lawyer crowd in Gotham. Dent wasted no time summoning Matt. After a bit of bribing and pleading he managed to convince Matt to do the most illogical thing he could think of. He convinced him to move his operation to Gotham. And so here he was, on an airplane, heading to the only city in the continental U.S. that was more dangerous than New York.

His friends Foggy and Karen begged him not to go. But Matt was never one to listen to reason. When he saw potential to do good among those who needed it most, Matt usually let his charitable Catholic side get the better of him. Still, the sudden turbulence in the airplane made Matt wonder for the worst. It wasn't that long ago that Gotham fell victim to a massive terrorist attack, headed by a clown-faced madman with an equally strange posse. The clown was reportedly locked up, but still. Even the "Man Without Fear" can't help but wonder if he's walking into a situation blind every now and then.

* * *

The old man stumbled his way to a red rose bush with glee. His oaken cane gracefully made up for his lack of step as he slowly made his way to the crimson red rosebush. His grey mustache tickled the flower as he sniffed its wet petals. The moisture from the petals stuck to his facial hair as he pulled away. His uninterested granddaughter rolled her eyes with distaste. She had become accustomed to witnessing her grandfather's seemingly addictive love of the outdoors. But he had spoiled her enough that she no longer had to pretend to enjoy such sites.

The park was remarkably empty for a weekend. The only people on site were the old man, his granddaughter, and two men in the distance playing frisbee. The girl glanced with disdain at her grandfather who still had his gray face submerged in the rose bush. She let out a scoff that was purposely made loud enough for him to hear. He half-stumbled around, his cane barely holding him in time. "I'm sorry my dear. Did I lose myself again? You know how much I tend to lose track of time on days as beautiful as this."

She rolled her eyes. No shorter than it took her to blink, a pitch-black car came pulling up behind them. It came with surprise silence considering how alone the girl and her grandfather had been in the park. The girl stood her ground, defiantly staring at the men as they emerged from the car. Her grandfather motioned for her to stand behind him. Reluctantly, she shuffled behind her grandfather as the final man emerged from the black vehicle.

The two men in the distance continued with the game of frisbee, oblivious to the meeting that was unfolding a few yards away. The granddaughter was uneasy. She brushed back her short dark hair as a middle-aged man from the black car casually walked towards them. Her grandfather, in a pleasant Welsh accent, wished the stranger good morning. "Beautiful day for a walk isn't it lads?" he said aloud. The stranger and his men only scoffed. A sadistic smile slid across the stranger's face.

In a thick Gothamite accent the stranger said "You know I'm not here for no mornin walk Cobblepot. But don't get me wrong. This can still be a good mornin for both of us." His smile faded slightly as he stepped in front of Cobblepot and his granddaughter. Cobblepot stared at the ground as the tall stranger stepped in front of him. His men circled around Cobblepot and his granddaughter. The girl snarled helplessly at the men as they gawked at them. She threatened them with a glance, but such gestures proved fruitless against men that were accustomed to killing.

"So, I gotta ask Cobblepot. It ain't personal. It's just business." The tall dark-haired stranger leaned in close to the old man and whispered, "Do you have my fucking money?" He stood back up immediately after the question, as though he knew what the answer would be even before Cobblepot could say anything. He stared down at Cobblepot with an arrogance that made his granddaughter glow red with rage.

The girl snarled her words when she yelled "He'll have your damn money next week Falcone!" Cobblepot jerked up with worry. His pale blue eyes were alight with a mixture of anger and concern at his granddaughter's harsh words. Falcone was not so much worried as he was infuriated. He was not accustomed to being sassed by a teenage girl. His leathery face glowed pink at what he perceived to be disrespect. "You better keep your girl on a leash there Cobblepot, before I have to smack her for ya". His words were idiotic to Cobblepot's ears, but he got the message. He motioned for his granddaughter to keep silent. She reluctantly agreed.

Falcone slowly smirked. His face was still red with prideful fury. But for the moment he accepted Cobblepot's surrender. "That's better. So now…what was that she said about my money? Next week? No…that's no good Cobblepot. I'm gonna need that shit now. Gotham is a hard city to control. With the Bat out of the picture, it's been easier coming out of the shadows. But the trouble is…every costumed idiot with a mental condition has started popping out of the bushes now that our bat-lord-and-savior has went caput. Money is the only thing keeping order in this goddamn wasteland of a city. So, I'm not exaggerating when I say that I need every cent that I can get my hands on just to keep the grease flowing. I need the money today. Don't take it personal. As they say in Hollywood, 'It's just business.'"

Cobblepot's granddaughter scoffed with barely suppressed laughter. Falcone shot her a confused glance before Cobblepot himself chimed in with a chuckle. Cobblepot was not an impressive man to look at. The average person might mistake him for a tourist who was on vacation. He was hilariously short, barely standing above five feet tall. His black top hat in a cartoonish manner. But at a closer glance, one might notice that he did in fact lack one thing. Cobblepot was one-eyed. This fact went largely unnoticed to most at first glance. His almost humorously large head and short stature meant that his glasses hid his missing left eye from most people.

Now that Falcone was staring at him harder, he finally noticed it. He'd barely ever looked at Cobblepot before. But now he noticed for once the strange glasses that Cobblepot wore, glasses that were blacked out with darkened tape on its left side in order to block the hideous left side of his face. Cobblepot was more deformed than simply being one-eyed. He had a scarred left side of his face that looked more like hamburger meat than human flesh.

On a normal day, Falcone might have inquired as to what happened to Cobblepot's face in the past. Why was he so deformed? He might have asked himself. But this time Falcone didn't have the time for such luxurious questions. Something about the old man's granddaughter distracted him. Her confidence was oddly unnerving. Most teenagers, teenagers who knew who he was anyway, knew enough to keep calm when he was around. But the Cobblepot girl seemed to be waiting for something. At first, he was afraid that she was awaiting cops. But Falcone had bought off all the cops that mattered in Gotham. The only cop that would dare come after him was Jim Gordon, and he was all but helpless without the Bat to aid him. So that couldn't be it.

Falcone stared at the girl when it suddenly hit him that old man Cobblepot himself had remained shockingly calm during the conversation as well. He never once lost his nerve. In fact, the old man seemed to be waiting on something as well. Cobblepot looked down at his watch, his mustache flicking in a cat-like manner as he seemingly interpreted the device on his wrist.

Impatient and unnerved, Falcone impulsively asked Cobblepot, "What the fuck are you waiting for old man? Are you expecting somebody?"

Cobblepot jerked his head upwards and responded "Oh just a new friend of mine. Say…have you ever heard of a man that goes by the name Deadshot?"...

Before Falcone had a second to answer, a series of bullets came flurrying from a few yards away. One of the men who had been playing with the frisbee earlier had suddenly jerked out an assault rifle and began firing on Falcone and his men.


	2. Friends in Low Places

Matt Murdock wasn't sure what to expect upon arriving at Harvey Dent's office. It was surprisingly similar to the firm that he shared with Foggy back in New York. Murdock & Nelson was a humble law firm that had more rats and fleas than clients. Harvey Dent's was similarly small but smelled of higher quality. His sense of smell picked up the strong odor of expensive perfume worn by Harvey's secretary Nancy. The smell of exotic flowers on her desk told Matt that she had someone wealthy in her life that loved her. He could hear Harvey loudly hanging up on someone on the phone in his office. A television somewhere in the background was playing the local news. Matt focused in on the sounds coming from the television, picking up the report of a local suspected mob lord named Falcone and several of his men being gunned down in a park that morning.

Matt was so focused on the story that he jolted when Harvey slammed his office door open. "Mr. Murdock! Damn glad to meet you. I hope the flight wasn't too rough." Harvey had walked out of his office and was viciously shaking Matt's hand in a matter of seconds. His grip was so strong that it actually hurt Matt's hand for a second. As Harvey looked away from him Matt caressed his own hand in an attempt to numb the pain. Harvey slammed the door behind them as he walked Matt into the office. Before Matt could even utter a greeting Harvey started to jabber away about why he'd invited him to New York. He started with the usual selling points, telling Matt about how well he'd be willing to pay him and how much better off he'd be in Gotham. Matt was taken aback by Harvey's demeanor. Although he couldn't see him Matt could tell by the smell of his cologne that Harvey was as rich as he was cultured. The cologne wasn't expensive for the sake of being expensive, it was fashionable. The scent of his suit smelt of designer kashmir. The same kind that Kingpin had worn.

He could tell by the way Harvey pronounced his words that he was a true Gothamite, born in the streets and raised there. His success in life was hard-earned, just like Matt's. He was impressed with him already. Finally, Harvey stopped talking about himself and the firm long enough to actually point a question at Matt. "I was damn impressed when I heard about you taking on the so-called "Kingpin of Crime" in New York. Damn impressed. It took balls to take on a man with corrupt cops at his back. I knew as soon as I heard that story that you were the kinda guy that I needed on my team. So how'bout it? You ready to take on a case just as risky as Wilson Fisk's?"

Matt wasn't sure what he meant by the question. There weren't a lot of men who were as dangerous as the Kingpin. He simply asked "Depends. Who would we be fighting?"

At Matt's invitation to talk more Dent let out another barrage of quickfire sentences. "The most dangerous man in all of Gotham. Even more dangerous than Batman if you ask me. Bruce Wayne himself. The man where all money in eventually Gotham flows to. The man whose family owns half this town in one way or another." Matt had vaguely heard the name before. He'd heard reports of Wayne Industries' involvement in charity and politics. He'd even heard of Bruce Wayne attending some of the same parties as Tony Stark. He only rubbed shoulders with the biggest names. So it was shocking that someone even as reputable as Harvey Dent would take on a man with that much power. Matt took a moment to respond. Harvey was uncharacteristically quiet awaiting Matt's response.

"What exactly has Mr. Wayne done to warrant us taking him to court?" He could tell from his superior senses by the beating of Harvey's heart and the sudden surge of heat from his face that Harvey was smiling. What this smile meant he couldn't determine.

Harvey yet again went on a tirade. "What hasn't Wayne done? He's basically the Donald Trump of Gotham. His entire family's history is filled to the brim with stories of corruption, bribery, tax evasion, thievery, and even more corruption. He waves and smiles at the cameras and makes sure that they take photos of him attending charity events. But scratch even a little below the surface and you'll find a man who has something to hide. At first, I thought it was a simple case of corporate corruption. But my witness has given me quite a bigger story."

Matt perked up at that. Taking a chance to finally interrupt Dent, Matt asked: "You have a witness to his company's tax evasion?"

Dent smiled and said "Oh she's seen more than corruption. According to my witness, Wayne Industries might be building itself a private army."

Matt began to worry about what he'd gotten himself into. He worried that Harvey might be a conspiracy theorist, or worse, going insane. It wasn't uncommon for public figures in Gotham to lose their minds. Harvey could sense that Matt was doubting him. As if by instinct Harvey corrected the argument. "I know how crazy that sounds Matt. My witness might be a bit quirky, but she has numbers and documents to back up her suspicions. She only worked at Wayne Industries for a couple of years. She was just a secretary, so the bigwigs at Wayne Industries didn't pay her any mind. In their ignorance, they failed to notice her snooping around the place. She uncovered.....inconsistencies in the company's records. Numbers that didn't add up. The company wasn't paying all of its taxes, and it was skimming money from the top when nobody was looking. At first, she thought that Bruce Wayne himself or one of his underlings was just skimming money for personal profit, but after she hacked into the company's hidden accounts she found something far more disturbing" Dent sounded more serious than he had earlier. The whimsy in his tone was all gone. Matt could tell from his slowed heartbeat that Harvey believed the story he was telling. Perhaps he was telling the truth.

Matt blurted out a question before Harvey could continue with his story, "What's the name of this witness Harvey? I didn't quite catch that."

Harvey cringed at the question. With a moment's pause, he finally answered "Eddie Nygma. She's got a checkered history if I'm being honest. She's got a hell'uva brain in her head, along with a red-hot temper. But she's quite possibly the smartest person to ever work for Wayne Industries, possibly as smart as Bruce Wayne himself. Her I.Q. is somewhere between 158 and 160, although if you were to ask her she'd say that it was higher. She graduated from Gotham Prep School at an early age and with higher marks than anyone else in her class. She earned a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Oxford and another Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the University of Chicago. She then came back to Gotham and graduated from the University of Gotham with a Master's in Humanities. She would have got a Doctorate's too had she not attacked one of her professor's with a butterknife, nearly killing the guy. She then spent a year in Arkham Asylum before she was let out on good behavior. Despite how smart she was she couldn't find a job anywhere after that, so with nowhere else to work she ended up as a secretary at Wayne Industries. She was more than just overqualified for the job, the job was absolutely beneath her. So out of boredom, she started digging into the company's records where she found things that terrified her."

Now Matt was curious. He had to admit that Harvey was good at selling a story. He asked "What evidence did she find about this so-called "private army" that Wayne is building?"

Harvey turned cold again. His tone indicated that he was legitimately afraid of what he'd uncovered. "Matt....she found records of the company buying weapons off of the black market in bulk. High tech metal plates from Japan, experimental torture devices from China, hell the company bought enough tasers last week alone to arm half the citizens in Gotham. And I'm not talkin regular tasers that cops would use, I'm talking the kind that could bring down a bear. The company is building up arms. For what purpose I can't tell, neither can Eddie Nygma. But whatever reason the company is arming itself it doesn't look good. One thing is for certain, they are going to war with someone or something."

Matt wasn't sure what to say to that. As Matt sat there motionless Harvey flopped some paperwork in front of him. "These are the documents that Eddie downloaded from her company's hidden archives. I went through the trouble of translating these into brail for you." Matt skimmed through the records, rapidly running his fingers along the brail, not believing what he was reading. It seemed to difficult to believe even for a guy like Matt Murdock, a man who at this point thought he'd seen it all. After a few moments of skimming the documents, he sat the papers back on Harvey's desk. "So," Harvey asked, "are you convinced? I really need a guy as brave as you to take this company down. It won't be easy. But I'm afraid if we don't do something now Wayne Industries might do something....drastic. So what do you say?"

Matt thought it over for a second. He hadn't really planned on taking on another case as big as this. His fight against Kingpin in court about did him in. Wayne Industries was even bigger and had entire teams of polished lawyers ready to defend the company. But as Harvey said, if they didn't step in now there was no telling what Wayne Industries was planning on doing with its increasing arsenal. He had to do something. With one final nod of the head, Matt asked, "So what do you need me to do?"

* * *

Vito Falcone was in a dangerous mood. That morning his grandson, the younger Falcone, was killed at the park by a crazed gunman. Apparently, that little sneaky Welshman Cobblepot had sold his pet store and taken out his retirement money all so he could afford a hitman of his own. That hitman was the infamous Deadshot, a man that the Falcones had used on their jobs a few times before. He wasn't the kind of man to be taken lightly. Even with all of their resources and manpower, the Falcone crime syndicate was on edge, especially since one of their successors was now dead. Between bouts of tears and yelling Vito barked orders at men around him. He was sitting at a dining table at the Gambino Italian Restaurant in downtown Bludhaven. He'd fled from Gotham that morning along with several of his lieutenants. Vito sobbed like a child at his loss. His tight red face lit up with a combination of rage and pain. His thick Sicilian accent made it difficult to decipher what he was saying.

Sitting around him were several of his most seasoned men. Among them were his son, Michael, his last surviving grandson Angelo and three other men whom he trusted. The three men were Dio, a Corsican hitman who had made a name for himself in Europe as being a cold-blooded killer, and two brothers from Sicily named Luca and Marco. Michael was comforting his distraught father. He pat him on the back and said "We're going to get this bastard for this Vito, don't you worry. That little Welsher is going to pay for this even if we have to have our boys search all of Gotham for him." Michael's words of encouragement did little to appease Vito's pain, but it did make him quiet down. Vito's surviving grandson, Angelo, looked as though he wanted to cry as well but he held back his tears in order to appear more manly. His young face was red with anger but his eyes remained dry.

The men all talked bravely but there was an unspoken fear in the room that all of the Falcones were too proud to admit to. Had it just been Cobblepot and his granddaughter the situation would have been easier. They could have easily killed both of Cobblepots within an hour of the younger Falcone's murder. But Deadshot coming into the conflict changed the game and they knew it. Even with all of their resources and all of their men they didn't stand a chance against a guy like Deadshot. Deadshot had even toppled Batman a couple of times in the past. What chance did they have against a hitman who wasn't afraid of the Bat?

With that fear in mind, they'd decided to outsource. Luckily for them, with the downfall of Kingpin in New York, another prevalent name in the criminal underworld had come to Gotham to escape the NYPD. Bullseye had come to Gotham looking for work. The Falcones couldn't believe their luck. Within a few hours, they'd gone from not knowing how to take on Deadshot to having the perfect outsider come to their rescue. One of Michael's lieutenants had made contact with Bullseye almost as soon as he entered Gotham. Vito and his men waited at Gambino's impatiently for Bullseye to come knocking. Michael kept checking his watch, looking back and forth from it to the door as though he were trying to summon him. Finally, they heard a loud and energetic knock at the restaurant's door. A knocking that persisted even as Luca, wielding a pistol, moved the curtains of the window to see who was outside. When he saw that it was Bullseye he quickly opened the restaurant's doors to let Bullseye in.

Bullseye looked Luca in the eye with a wide grin and kept knocking at the now opened door. Luca tried to coax him in by stepping aside but Bullseye kept banging on the door with his left hand in a whimsical pose, with his right hand resting firmly on his waist. "Not sure I got the right address. Could you fellas point me out to a guy named Vito Falcone?" Luca rolled his eyes and gestured towards Vito setting at the back. Bullseye arched up with glee and attempted to stroll into the restaurant. He only made it a few steps before Luca and Marco stopped him. Bullseye looked upward and sighed with annoyance as the two brothers inspected him, grabbing him anywhere that they thought he could be hiding a gun. After a few minutes of probing the brothers decided that he was unarmed and let Bullseye pass. He gave them a curtsy and said "Gee boys you should have bought me dinner first before you groped me. Hey, are those breadsticks?" He pranced over to the table that Vito was sitting at and plopped into the chair opposite of him. He quickly started to shove the food off of Vito's plate into his gaping mouth.

Bullseye was an odd-looking man. His costume was strange enough to the Falcones, an endless blob of black spandex with a white bullseye painted into the forehead of the cowl. But his eyes, his eyes were unnerving. They appeared to be unevenly distributed on his face. One eye was bigger than the other, and both lacked any light in them. Vito had seen that look before. In Gotham, if you wanted to be a crimelord, then you tended to be forced to run across crazed men who had mad eyes. Eyes that said that they'd be willing to do anything, hurt anything, or anyone, to get their way. The Joker had been like that. Vito was getting a similar impression from Bullseye. He began to wonder if it was a mistake to contact him. His son Michael was the one who broke the silence, coming to sit directly beside Bullseye.

"So Mr. Bullseye what do you call yourself?"

His face full of wine and bread Bullseye spoke with a mouthful of food, spitting out crumbs as he did, much to Vito's annoyance. "Please, Mr. Bullseye was my father's name. Just call me Bullseye."

Michael wasn't sure what to make of the joke so he ignored it. Vito chose to speak next, going straight to business. "Bullseye it is then. Tell me, have you ever heard of a man who goes by the monicker Deadshot?"

Bullseye's eyes were disrespectfully looking down away from Vito as he spoke, focusing solely on the pile of food on his plate. His fork and knife were destroying a piece of steak that was intended for Vito. He took a moment to swallow the mound of cuisine in his mouth before replying "Yeah yeah yeah I heard of him. He's a prudish hack who has no love for the craft that he's in. But he's a downright deadly bastard when he sets his mind to it. I met him once on a job in Metropolis. He didn't talk to me much, I don't think he liked me. But he shot like an artist. Each bullet he fired hit his target, each shot a kill shot. It would take a lot of cash to make me muster up the courage to fight him."

Vito was disappointed to hear that. He had heard that Bullseye was fearless. With open confusion in his voice, he said "I'm surprised to see you being so timid. I was under the impression that you'd fight anyone for the right price. And we are more than willing to pay the right price to see Deadshot get his comeuppance." He gestured for Michael who in return pulled out a massive duffel bag full of more money than most people see in a lifetime. Bullseye perked up at the site of the bag. His eyes for the first time since sitting down looked away from Vito's plate. Pushing the now empty plate away from him Bullseye eyed the bag and wiped his hands on a napkin.

"How much is in the bag?" he asked Michael.

Michael replied with a grin "Enough to keep you from having to work again for quite some time."

Bullseye smiled at the thought, his unkempt mouth revealing a row of uneven teeth. For a moment Vito and Michael both thought that they'd won him over. Their faces turned to confused frowns when he spoke next, "I don't know boys" he said, fork and knife still in hand. "I could just as easily take this money without working for you". Vito leaned back at that. He knew what was going to happen next.

Michael was slower than his father, as was his son Angelo. Angelo blurted out in a youthfully condescending tone "And just what do you mean by that asshole? The only way you're getting that money is by bringing us Deadshot's head on a stick!" Vito remained staring at Bullseye. Bullseye turned his head back and smirked at Angelo, who sat at a table behind them. Michael suddenly realized far too late what Bullseye's real intentions for being there were.

Bullseye chuckled a bit before turning back to Vito and saying "You see fellas, I was already offered a job before coming to Gotham. That little Welsher contacted me before you boys ever even knew I'd left New York." Before anyone could reply Bullseye stabbed his fork into Michael's head with enough force that Michael crashed through the table, breaking it in two. He turned around with lightning speed and threw the knife that he'd been eating with into Angelo's throat, immediately killing him. Luca, Dio, and Marco tried to fire at him, but Bullseye was faster. With a sadistic grin on his face, he was already running across the room, jabbing a broken piece of the porcelain plate he'd been eating off of into Marco's stomach. Marco went down screaming in pain. Bullseye then grabbed at Luca's gun, causing Luca to misfire into the ceiling. Grappling for Luca's gun while kicking Dio's out of his hand, Bullseye snapped Luca's wrist and took the gun from him. He fired two shots point-blank into Luca's chest and finished Dio off with a single shot. He then spun around just in time to shoot a pistol out of the hands of Vito.

A gun had been hidden under the table that Vito was sitting at, but as old and slow as he was he hadn't managed to pull it out in time. After Bullseye shot the firearm out of Vito's weak wrists he was left defenseless. Bullseye had singlehandedly finished off the leaders of the Falcone gang, the strongest gang in all of Gotham. Now there was just Vito left, a helpless old man standing against a trained killer. Bullseye took his time sauntering towards Vito. He moved liked a predator, staring Vito down with a knowing grin, a grin that never seemed to leave his face. With a sudden spring in his step he jumped the table between him and Vito and had him pinned onto the ground, his gun shoved directly into the old man's forehead.

Vito began to rapidly pray and beg back and forth between English, Italian, and Latin. His desperate pleading only seemed to make Bullseye smile wider. Vito had been right, something was off in Bullseye's eyes. They were the eyes of someone who wasn't human. He fit right in with Gotham. Bullseye said with a twinkle in his voice "Cobblepot sends his regards" before firing a final bullet into Vito.


	3. The Devil You Know

Jim Gordon cursed to himself. Of all times to go missing, Batman chose to take a hiatus at a time when Gotham's criminals were dropping like flies. Part of him was guiltily pleased with hearing about the Falcone family's demise. But for the most part, Jim was worried about what was going to happen next. Gotham was prone to sprouting a few vigilantes here and there, Batman being the best of them, but whoever was in charge of this massacre had a morbid sense of justice. The entire Falcone family gunned down in a single day. That's something that nobody in Gotham thought that they'd ever hear. 

After all the Falcones had survived, it seemed almost tragic that they were taken down so easily. They had survived superhuman threats that would have caused any other family to flee Gotham. The Falcones had survived the League of Shadows, they'd survived Batman, and they even survived the dreaded clown himself, the Joker. It seemed like their family was as integral to Gotham as the Waynes were, yet like the Waynes, they'd been gunned down. 

Slamming the paperwork down on his desk Jim let out a long sigh and puffed his cigar. He heard a thud behind him and a glowing voice say "You know Jim you shouldn't smoke. Those things can kill ya". He turned around to see Nightwing standing casually behind him resting against the wall. His dark blue and black outfit kept him partially hidden in the dimly lit office. Jim turned back around facing his desk and muttered grumpily to himself. He never understood how the Bat and his sidekicks did that; how they managed to sneak behind a man without an entrance in sight. He reached into his desk and pulled out a glass jar of whiskey, pouring a shot into a small shot glass. 

"At the rate that things are going kid, I'll be lucky if the cigars kill me first. That reminds me, how's Batman doing? We could really use him right about now". Jim tried to sound calm but his tone betrayed his irritation. Nightwing smiled weakly and took a moment to respond. 

"He'll be back soon Jim. The fight with the Joker took a lot out of him. You remember how brutal that was. He's lucky he made it out alive, you can forgive him for taking some time to recover". Jim could hear the uncertainty in Nightwing's voice. That scared him more than anything. He'd known the kid long enough, although he didn't know his name, that he could tell when he was nervous. Whatever was wrong with Batman wasn't going to be fixed anytime soon. Not that he was ungrateful for Nightwing's help. Indeed Jim knew that without Nightwing things would be far worse than they already were in Gotham right about now. It would be absolute chaos. Still, Batman had a way of easing situations. As much as he appreciated Nightwing's help he much rather preferred the Bat. 

Jim downed the contents of the shot glass before he replied. "Well, thanks for showing up anyway kid. I could really use a hand with this Falcone situation. It was bad enough this morning when it was just Deadshot and his unnamed benefactor involved. Now with that Bullseye prick getting tangled up into this already colossal mess, I think we're going to need your whole team to shut this down before it gets even bigger." He spun his chair around and handed a folder to Nightwing. 

"Bullseye? I thought he was in New York?" 

"He was," Jim said in a dry, almost exhausted tone. "Seems like his former employer, Kingpin, got taken down. Bullseye must have cut out before the NYPD or that Daredevil character could get to him. Now he's looking for new employment, and it sounds like he found it. In that folder you'll find three other guys, Deadshot included, who according to rumors from the street has been hired by the same mysterious benefactor." At that Nightwing rampantly opened the folder and flipped through it. 

"I've heard of these guys," Nightwing said aloud. "Black Spider. Born in downtown Gotham, son of two Jamaican immigrant parents. Parents were killed by some drug dealers, now he goes about killing gangsters in some petty quest for revenge, thinks he's the next in line to replace Batman. Deadshot we already know about." He flipped to the last section of the notes. "Ahh, Bane. We go way back. I should have known that he'd be involved in this somehow. Every time a flea so much as bites me I half expect Bane to be behind it." Nightwing closed the folder and handed it back to Jim. "So these four guys were all hired by the same mystery man? You think its a rival gang or something?" 

Jim shook his head. Gang wars weren't very common in Gotham, especially since the Falcones were the only true gang left standing after years of rogues and villains weeding out the weaker crime syndicates. "No, I don't think it's gang-related. Bullseye is no stranger to the criminal underworld. I could even see Bane lowering himself to that standard. But you said yourself that Black Spider hates gangs. And Deadshot hasn't been very friendly towards them either in recent years, not since his kid died. To get guys like that on their team this benefactor must have other things on their mind." 

Nightwing perked up with interest. "You think our perp is another vigilante then? A guy who's hiring others to deliver his sick sense of justice?" 

"Afraid so" sighed Jim. "Just what this city needs. Another deranged lunatic thinking that he's Gotham's key to salvation. They're bad enough on their own but now that they're teaming up you're gonna have to have all the help you can get kid. If Batman's out of the picture for now then you can at least get Robin to help. Is he busy?" Jim asked the question in a more desperate tone than he intended. The question, coupled with Jim Gordon's visible desperation, made Nightwing nervous. 

"I don't know Jim. Robin's pretty busy himself. After all, he's the only hero in Bludhaven. He's got a lot on his plate." 

Jim scoffed at that. "Well, the entire Falcone family just got dusted in his city. You'd think that he'd show a bit of interest. If Gotham's crime is spilling into Bludhaven then he might as well come back and help you here." He had a point, Nightwing couldn't deny that. Gotham's problems had just become Bludhaven's problems. If a family as old and powerful as the Falcones couldn't stop Bullseye and Deadshot than he certainly wouldn't be able to on his own. He'd need help. He thought about asking Batgirl but refrained from telling Jim about his plan. Nightwing was always reluctant to talk about Batgirl in from of the commissioner. 

After a moment's contemplation, Nightwing said "Ok you have a point. I'll ask him. I won't make any promises, but I'll ask." Jim lit up after Nightwing said that. A Robin and Nightwing team-up still didn't replace Batman, but it was better than the city being defenseless. Robin was scrappy for such a young man. Barely older than a teenager. But he could handle himself. With him helping Nightwing with the investigation Jim could breathe a sigh of relief for the moment. Still, Black Spider, Bane, and Deadshot were one thing, but this Bullseye was someone that neither Jim nor Nightwing knew anything about. He'd never stepped foot in Gotham. The fact that he didn't know much about him made Jim nervous. Jim understood Gotham's regular rogues, but this newcomer was an entirely different animal, and in Gotham, the devil you know is often better than the devil you don't. 

* * *

Eddie Nygma made Harvey and Matt some tea as they talked. It was a bit too strong for Matt's tastes but he chose to keep that to himself. Her apartment was littered with books upon books. When her humble amount of shelves failed to withhold the massive flow of books Eddie resorted to loading her dining table with books. Books sat on top of each other on the floor next to her sofa, so high up that at first glance they looked like a table. Eddie claimed to Matt that on a slow day she can skim through two or three books in a few hours. Currently, she was trying to get through a book on modern economics, written by Tony Stark, although she found Tony's style of writing to be a bit pretentious. Tony's book, titled _Starkenomics_ , sat on the couch like a housepet. 

She finally fixed her own cup of tea and sat opposite Harvey and Matt, who sat on the same sofa that _Starkenomics_ was resting on. Peculiarly enough, Eddie sat cross-legged on top of a coffee table. Judging from the smell Matt deduced that she dressed rather nicely despite her current living conditions. He smelled the fabric of her suit, smelled expensive. Matt wondered how she could afford such a taste in clothing. Her hair too smelled of hair dye, red hair dye. Oddly enough he smelled that she wore men's cologne. 

"So you're the guy that took on that fat gangster in court back at New York. What did he call himself?.... Ah, Kingpin. Impressive I gotta say. I followed that case on the news. I could have had the guy arrested in a single night if it were me. But impressive nonetheless." She talked with a monotone voice. It didn't come off as natural. She spoke as though she were studying him. Although he couldn't see it, Matt could almost feel her eyes looking him up and down, and darting back to Harvey. Right before Matt was about to respond to her question she darted up with unnecessary speed, almost spilling her tea in the process. She sprinted over to another mountain of books that she had in the corner of her living room and dug through the pile. When she finally found the book that she wanted she sprinted back to Matt and slammed a massive book into his lap, almost hitting the tea that he was carefully balancing. "There! I figured that's a book that only a blind lawyer could appreciate." 

Matt ran his fingers across the cover. It was a book on Roman law, written in braille. That caught Matt off guard. "You can read in braille?" he asked. 

Judging from the sudden surge of heat that he detected in her face he could tell that she smiled at the question.

"I can read braille and Latin, as well as Spanish and German. I can speak all three languages too along with Italian and French. I'm currently trying to pick up on Mandarin but that's a nut that I've yet to crack." 

"That's impressive Eddie, you don't mind if I call you Eddie do you?" Harvey continued talking even as he asked the question. "Personally I'm barely capable of speaking English!" Harvey's attempt at a joke went unnoticed by Eddie. Matt cracked a smile at his remark but failed to lighten the mood. Realizing that humor wasn't going to get him anywhere Harvey went straight to business. "So, you and I have an enemy in common Eddie. Wayne Industries has always been a bit...lackluster as far as business ethics go. But if what you've told me is even partially true then Bruce Wayne needs to spend some quality time in a cell underground, and the key needs to be thrown in a ditch. I was spooked when you showed me the numbers. Why I was telling Matt..." 

Eddie interrupted him abruptly. "I'm going to stop you right there Harvey. I've been doing my research on you as well. Matt here seems like an honest chap. You've been holding out on me. I should have done my research before I shared my information with you. Better late than never". Harvey seemed utterly dumbfounded by her sudden interrogation, Matt could hear his heartbeat quicken. Harvey opened his mouth and made a noise like he was going to say something but couldn't make a reply in time. Eddie continued in a very high, nasally voice, "Apparently you weren't always such a rival with Bruce. In fact, one could say that you used to be rather chummy with the old boy. I saw pictures of you and him at the same prep school together. You went to the same church too back in the day, First Gotham Lutheran Church if I'm not mistaken, and I'm never mistaken. You both even went to the same Boyscout's camp one summer. Just how well did you know the old man?" 

Matt could feel Harvey grow uncomfortable. He sensed Harvey's breath faltering and his temperature rising. He wanted to interrupt and help Harvey but wasn't sure how. After an awkward pause, Harvey finally spoke up. "Alright. I'm going to level with you. Bruce and I used to be best friends. Mind you I said we _used to be_. Things have changed since prep school. I don't recognize the man I grew up with when I look at him anymore. When he was young he had such life about him. Such honesty. I used to be a scrawny kid. Whenever someone in our school would pick on me Bruce would give them a black eye or a fat lip. He'd set me up with dates, girls that were out of my league at the time. He'd let me cheat on his homework. Bruce even helped my family out of debt once. He was a great kid...but as a man he's a completely different person. His business has seen a skyrocketing in corruption in recent years. He's bought off the Gotham Police. Bribed politicians. Instead of helping the community he just smiles and waves at them, promising them a better future while he filanders off with his expensive prostitutes on a yacht in the Caribbean somewhere. Yes, we used to be friends. But the death of his parents broke something in Bruce. He hasn't been that sweet kid that I knew in a long time. Now he's just another corrupted old man who thinks he's still young." 

Matt was bewitched by Harvey's response. With just a few words Harvey had made Matt respect him unquestionably, and despise Bruce just as much. Eddie, however, was a harder sell. Her heartbeat had remained the same throughout the speech. Matt didn't detect any changes in smell or heat signature from her. In other words, he could tell that she was not completely convinced. Realizing that they were losing her Matt stepped in. "Eddie," he said, he sensed her gaze turn swiftly to him. He could almost feel her darting eyes narrow with suspicion. "I know you don't have a reason to trust us. After what you uncovered at Wayne Industries I wouldn't blame you if you were frightened. You don't have to trust us. We want the same thing. Gotham needs to feel safe. I've met men like Bruce Wayne before. He thinks he's unstoppable. But he isn't. I've seen just as powerful men as him fall, and they fell hard. It's up to you to give us what we need to remind him of his own fallibility." 

His speech piqued her interest more. Matt figured that appealing to her arrogance would be more effective. And he was right. By making it sound like she was their only hope he won her back over to their side. She arched her back and sighed as if the decision had taken a strain on her. With a scoff, she said "At least you are willing to admit when you're out of your depth. Those suited monkeys at Wayne Industries didn't realize how much of my potential that they were wasting." She let out a nasally sound that Matt took as an attempt at a chuckle before continuing. "They thought that I was just another airheaded bimbo like the girls that they were accustomed to hiring. They'd tell me to get their coffee. Answer the phone when their wives called. Lie to their wives about where they've been all day. On once occasion, my supervisor even asked me to wash the lipstick off of his shirt-collar before his wife could see it. It was a joke! Imagine someone like me taking such menial tasks from a bunch of men who might as well have been gibbons by comparison. I have a higher I.Q. than both my supervisor and his own boss combined. Yet there I was being treated like an extra housewife." 

She paused for a moment. Even without Matt's superhuman senses he probably could have felt the bitter heat radiating from Eddie as she spoke. Clearly, she had a bone to pick with Wayne Industries that was pettier than corruption. She continued with her rant. "But my supervisor made the mistake that all men make. He grew lazy. He underestimated me. His boss had grown lazy as well and pawned off some paperwork that he didn't want to do onto him. And in return my supervisor pawned off the paperwork onto me, asking me to do it for him with a condescending wink and smile. I suspect that if Mr. Wayne himself knew about their combined laziness he'd have fired them both on the spot, especially considering what the paperwork had to say. Any other bimbo secretary, the kind of secretary that they took me for, wouldn't have noticed the inconsistencies in the paperwork. Indeed I doubt my caveman of a boss or his equally mundane superior noticed. But I did. Numbers didn't add up. And when numbers don't add up that means that somebody is lying about something. Words can lie but numbers can't.

"After that, my curiosity got the better of me. I always loved a good mystery. And my soul-crushing job was boring the hell out of me, pardon my language, so I had nothing better to do. Naturally, one morning when my boss went on lunch, and my lunch I mean he snuck off to visit his mistress across the street, I hacked into Wayne Industrie's more secretive accounts and learned things that I doubt Wayne wanted someone like me to learn. I found weapon's deals from countries that shouldn't be selling weapons. Enough weapons to conquer the city of Paris with if one had the mind to. Black market dealings, tax evasions, money laundering, all kinds of dirty little secrets that weren't so little. Why if I didn't know any better I'd think that Wayne Industries was either illegally selling weapons to terrorists, which might explain Gotham's villainy problem, or worse, that they funding their own private army. What they'd need with a personal army I can't determine. But I for one don't want them to have one." 

It was a lot to take in. Matt was no stranger to corrupt businessmen. Half of the cases he'd fought in was against corrupt men, men like Wilson Fisk. But this was a new type of threat that he'd never dealt with personally, neither as Matt Murdock the lawyer nor as Daredevil. This was something that the Justice League or the Avengers commonly dealt with. He began to wonder if Harvey was dragging him into something that they couldn't handle. He could hear Harvey nodding in contemplation. 

After he soaked in all of her troubling information Matt stood up and said: "Ms. Nygma if you're willing to testify in a court all of the information that you just shared with me and Harvey, then we'd be glad to work with you." He stuck out his hand waiting for her to shake it. For a long enough moment to make Matt feel foolish she just remained sitting and starring at him. Finally, after she convinced herself that he was worth the effort, she stood up.

Shaking his hand with surprising force she said "Ok Matt. I'm willing to give you gents a try." Instead of leaving on a good note, however, she pulled him closer and whispered into his ear, "But I should give you fair warning. If at any point in this investigation I decide that either you or your Harvey buddy over there are screwing me over, I won't hesitate to bring you both down with me." 


	4. Bat Out of Hell

Eddie Nygma had given them more to work with than Matt had anticipated. Even so, he had enough experience with corrupt billionaires to know that Wayne wasn't going to go down without a fight, and he had enough lawyers to put up one hell of a fight. Matt was going to need more than what Eddie could give him in order to truly go against Wayne. He was going to have to be Daredevil, at least for tonight. His Daredevil persona could acquire information discreetly in ways that his day job never could. He hadn't wanted to use his Daredevil persona in Gotham. Costumes attract villains, and Gotham had enough crazed supervillains to go around.

Not to mention there was that Batman character running around. According to the news, Batman had gone missing but Daredevil didn't want to take any chances. He doubted very much that Batman would enjoy the company of another hero. When the Punisher had come to Gotham years prior he came out of the city practically crawling on his hands and knees. Batman had hurt Frank Castle dearly, as a warning to any other vigilantes who entered the city. While Daredevil's reputation was a bit cleaner than the Punisher's he still worried that Batman would see him as yet another unwanted guest. Daredevil told himself that Batman was likely somewhere else in the city far from Wayne Manor, it's not like Wayne himself had costumed vigilantes on payroll.

He was about three stories above the ground, so it surprised him that Wayne had sensors on his third-story windows. Daredevil was careful not to break any glass. He sensed the device behind the window, a small movement-sensor probably, that would set off a silent alarm if the glass was disturbed. His years of breaking into Kingpin's well-guarded loft had given Daredevil a bit of experience with such devices. Instead, he very carefully, painstakingly, fiddled around with a jerry-rigged device of his own. A cloth hanger widdled down to be even thinner was his weapon of choice. He slid the thin metal wire through a crack between the window and wooden shingles. Daredevil felt a small heat signature coming from the back of the sensor, likely where the device's battery was located. He jammed the bent cloth hanger into the back of the sensory device with all his strength, and as he did so he heard a slight humming sound from the device along with a sudden loss of its heat signature. Success. He broke the device, proving to himself yet again that a wise enough man can ruin million-dollar equipment with even the cheapest of tools. With no danger of being detected, he finally went through the window, landing like a cat onto the ground of the third floor.

His nose told him the shape of the room before his echolocation did. It seemed to be a bedroom, he assumed it to be a guest bedroom. Judging from the smell he deduced that this one room was worth more than Dent's entire firm. He detected the scent of foreign lotions, fox fur rugs, an ivory statue shaped like a bat, and a piano that smelled like it was Italian made. The bed alone took up an entire wall. Daredevil hated Wayne already, but this room made that hatred palpable.

Daredevil slowly opened the bedroom door and made his way downstairs. There was a smell that was bothering him, a smell not as pungent as the flower-scented guestroom was, but all the more worrisome. It was a smell of metal. Titanium alloy, like the kind of metal that Ironman's suit was made of. Why would a rich playboy need military-grade metal? Daredevil followed the smell to its source. Walking so slowly that almost an hour passed by he made his way through a maze of endless hallways filled to the brim with renaissance paintings and marble busts until he found himself face to face with an antique bookshelf. Any other man would have just seen a massive bookshelf, albeit a shelf that covered an entire wall and was filled with books in every language, but Matt sensed something behind it. A slight breeze came from behind one of the rows of books, and he smelled metal far behind the shelf. There was a room behind the bookshelf.

Matt felt around the books, looking for a hidden key or switch to get into the next room. Almost by chance, he found one that wasn't a book at all, it was a well-disguised lever. After pulling the lever the great wall of books very quietly, or as quietly as an entire wall could, opened up like a doorway, revealing what was behind it. Things were getting stranger by the second. Whatever it was that Wayne was up to wasn't good. He was more than just an idiotic playboy, he had something that he clearly wanted to keep hidden. He walked down the hidden stairway toward the smell of titanium, getting ever so closer. He wondered what he'd find when he'd get there. Was it a weapon? Armor? Something worse? He knew that whatever he found it was going to be damning for Wayne in court. Daredevil made his way to the bottom until the walls stopped being walls, and the wooden stairway turned to brick. The wooden walls gave way to pure rock. The smell of oak and art was replaced with the smell of bats. He had entered a cave.

As he made his way out of the stairway and into the actual cave, Daredevil couldn't help but stand agape at what he'd found. While he couldn't see it, his other senses gave him an image of the room that made him go weak at the knees. He wasn't afraid, but the shock of the discovery was enough to make him ponder where to go from there. He smelled titanium suits resting peacefully in every corner of the cave. Metallic weapons sat in rows on desks, weapons that would have made even the most well-equipped army blush. Bats flew and screamed back and forth like gnats, their symbolism so obvious that even a blind man could see it. He couldn't believe what he saw, or rather what he heard and smelled. He had mistakenly found the lair of Batman.

Daredevil took a moment to take in the discovery, a moment that almost made him miss the sound of silent feet running behind him. Even with his superior senses, Daredevil only barely caught the sound in time. The footsteps were rapid, but their movement was almost soundless. Daredevil turned around just in time to block a kick from what seemed to be a much younger combatant. Judging from the sound of his heartbeat and from his height, Daredevil deduced that this enemy was a teenager. "Robin!" Daredevil yelled aloud without thinking. Robin was fast. Daredevil blocked all of his attacks but it took every inch of his expertise to do so. The boy seemed to have had similar training. He knew just when to throw a punch, when to block, and he knew when to fake a blow in order to surprise your enemy with a true attack. He feigned a punch with his right hand just to distract Daredevil, and after Daredevil moved his knee upward to block the blow Robin came up with his left fist, aiming it at Daredevil's temple. Daredevil ducked just in time, only narrowly dodging Robin's left fist.

Daredevil punched Robin in the chest with all his might, but even so, he barely knocked Robin back a few inches. The two began trading blows back and forth, neither moving an inch. Daredevil was winning the fight but only by a small margin. His opponent was starting to breathe heavily from the fight, starting to succumb to Daredevil's punches, but it was taking a toll on Daredevil. For such a young man, Robin could hit hard. And he wore metal plated gloves, which gave his blows even more of an impact. Had it not been for Daredevil's experience fighting stronger men then he might have easily been taken down by Robin, but he was older than Robin by possibly quite a few years and was trained to resist pain at almost an inhuman level. After what felt like an eternity of fighting he delivered one last blow to Robin with a well-aimed kick to the chest, taking him down with such force that for a moment he worried that he might have mortally hurt the kid.

Robin went down but much to Daredevil's horror tried with all his might to stand back up. He still wasn't giving up! Daredevil panted with the breath of a man that was out of energy yet Robin still tried to keep fighting. Fortunately for him, Robin's perseverance proved to be in vain. His spirit might not have been broken, but his body couldn't take anymore. After his weakened knees and elbows buckled underneath him he fell to the ground with a loud thump.

Daredevil let out a relaxed sigh. He felt bad for winning the fight. Although Robin proved to be a worthy opponent he was still much younger, likely no older than nineteen years in age. That coupled with the fact that Daredevil had only ever heard nice things about Robin, he didn't feel good about knocking him unconscious. He didn't have time to contemplate his actions, however. Daredevil narrowly ducked out of the way in time as a baton came crashing past his head. His senses picked up the almost silent sound of more rapid footsteps coming from behind him, this time much quieter than Robin's had been. His new assailant was older by a few years, almost as old as Daredevil was. He was also slightly taller yet just as fast as he was. Had Daredevil been at his peak strength he might have held his own against this new combatant, but the fight with Robin had exhausted him.

His movements were slowed from fatigue, enough that the new opponent easily outmatched him. He felt a shock from what felt like a taser but was much more painful before falling to his knees. The smell of thin yet durable titanium armor as well as the electric shock that this enemy had blasted Daredevil with told him all he needed to know about the identity of his opponent. "So you're Nightwing," Daredevil said.

Nightwing smirked at that, Daredevil could tell from the sudden smell of warmth in his face. "You're a clever one. I wonder how clever you'll be in Blackgate!" Nightwing raised his baton prepared to deliver a crushing blow to his defeated opponent before a much older voice rang out behind him. A much taller man, a man who by the smell of him was twice as old as Daredevil, erratically walked into the cave.

The voice yelled out "Enough!" Nightwing jerked his head behind him to meet the gaze of the older man entering the fight. This older gentleman, a man who Daredevil knew immediately to be Wayne, walked crookedly towards him, with an expensive oak cane being the only thing keeping him from falling to the ground. He knew for sure at that moment that Bruce Wayne was Batman. That revelation was shocking in and of itself, but the fact that his Robin and Nightwing companions could so easily keep up with a fighting veteran like Daredevil was awe-inspiring.

Bruce Wayne now stood directly in front of Daredevil, who at this point was still on his knees and bleeding out of every hole in his face. Nightwing whispered into Wayne's ear "He knows who we are, Bruce! What should we do?" Wayne silenced Nightwing with a wave of his hand. He knelt down with great effort to meet Daredevil's gaze, not knowing that Daredevil couldn't see his eyes.

Wayne studied him for a moment. "You did well. Robin hasn't been beaten in a solo fight in two years. You even did well against Nightwing for a second there, rarely have I met a man who could take on both of my boys simultaneously. So you must be the Devil of Hell's Kitchen?" He asked the question with scorn in his voice. Clearly, he didn't have much respect for Daredevil's reputation. He likely thought him to be yet another dangerous vigilante like Frank Castle. Daredevil smiled crookedly, the blood staining his teeth as he did.

There was so much blood pouring down his nose that he sounded like he was drowning when he spoke. Daredevil attempted to meet Wayne's gaze when he jokingly said: "So Bruce Wayne isn't dealing in illegal weapons, he's dealing in child soldiers."

Bruce Wayne scowled at the remark. Daredevil let out a chuckle right before Wayne knocked him unconscious with his cane.


	5. The Four Horsemen

Barbara Gordon was on the case. Nightwing had called her earlier that day asking for her help in an investigation. As Batgirl she was as useful to Nightwing as Batman ever was, but even she couldn't be everywhere at once. She'd followed a group of drug dealers coming out of Bludhaven into an abandoned warehouse at Gotham's harbor. The Falcones weren't even cold yet and newcomers were already coming out of the woodwork to take their place. The Maroni crime family had been a big deal in Bludhaven, giving Robin a run for his money, but they could never touch Gotham without risking the wrath of the Falcones. Now things have changed, or so the Maronis thought. Batgirl followed the family to the seemingly empty warehouse and watched them go inside. Their patriarch, Sal Maroni, led his two sons, a daughter, and several of their lieutenants inside along with a shipment of drug money.

She received a call from Nightwing, which startled her from her concentration and almost made her fall from the rooftop that she was hiding out on, and furiously answered it. "What is it, Dick?! I'm in the middle of an investigation, an investigation that you put me on remember?"

"Barbara it's about Tim. Some crazy guy in a devil costume broke into Wayne Manor and beat the shit out of Robin. He even held his own against me afterward. Bruce and I have him locked away but I think he's not working alone."

Batgirl couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What the hell do you mean somebody beat Tim? Tim hasn't lost a fight in two years."

"I know Barbara. Bruce and I were just as surprised. The guy even made it past our security. He's bad news. Be careful out there, there could be more like him."

Batgirl sighed. She used to find it sweet how much Nightwing coddled her. Nowadays it just seemed overprotective. Ever since they got engaged he's been treating her like a porcelain doll that needed to be handled delicately. "I'll be fine Dick. I'm twice the fighter that Tim is. I'm just going to take care of some Maroni goons and then I'm going to come right back to Wayne Manor to help you guys out with this mystery devil. I'll be there soon. Love you."

"Love you too. And Barbara..."

She hung up on him before he managed to finish his sentence. She knew that whatever he had to say next was probably just going to be more coddling. Something seemed off. Maronis were known to work in the shadows but the warehouse seemed too quiet even for shady business. After what felt like an eternity of inactivity, but was in fact only a few minutes, she grew impatient and took a risk. She knew that if Nightwing was watching he'd have a panic attack, but if she was going to investigate properly then she needed to take a few necessary risks, just like Batman used to do before he had kids.

Batgirl snuck into the warehouse through a third-story window. She snuck around the warehouse on silent feet but after a few moments of prowling it quickly became apparent to her that her stealth was unnecessary. In the few minutes that she'd spent outside someone had somehow massacred the entire Maroni clan, just like they had done to the Falcone clan. "Fuck!" she yelled impulsively. She hated herself for failing this much, but these murders had to occur at lightning speed. Even more shockingly, they'd managed to kill the entire family in complete silence. She didn't even hear a single gunshot from outside. Nobody could kill that fast, nor that quietly, and she'd only been outside for a short time. Everyone from the patriarch of the clan, his white suit now half red from his own blood, to his many goons, half of whom looked like they'd been crushed too death by something heavy or someone strong, were all littered around the floor of the warehouse like rubble. The two Maroni sons looked like they'd been killed first, a smart choice since the two young men carried the biggest guns. Their machine guns lay underneath them like broken appendages.

The goons, the ones who were crushed, looked as though they'd been bulldozed by a massive force at an unstoppable speed, so fast that none of the men had time to fire back in defense. They lay on top of each other in a pile of bodies, their faces a look of complete bewilderment. "Bane," Batgirl said to herself. She barely had time to comprehend her revelation before she ducked her head from a bullet which grazed her cowl. It knocked one of her "bat-ears" but she was otherwise untouched. Her quick reflexes narrowly saved her from the initial shot but she knew that there'd be more. She rolled behind cover, choosing a pile of palettes as her protection. Whoever fired the shot was using a silencer, which explained why she couldn't hear it from outside. After a few seconds of silence, she heard something that took her a moment to wrap her mind around. One of the assailants was whistling. "Great, another overly humorous rogue" she sighed to herself. Batgirl never could understand why Gotham rogues always seemed to be so whimsical. It was one of the more annoying things about fighting crime in this city.

The whistler, whoever he was, had quite an arm on him. They threw a tire iron so hard that it flew through the palettes like they were made of wrapping paper, only missing her head by an inch and stabbing deep into a beam opposite of her. She knew that she didn't have much time to act. Her assailants were going to close in on her and kill her as easily as they did the Maronis if she didn't act quickly. She threw a smoke bomb behind her and ziplined into the ceiling. With her night-vision on, she could see the first attacker, a man with a bullseye insignia on his chest and forehead. The smoke hid her from him, so taking his moment of blindness to her advantage she fell upon him with both legs arched forward like spears. She could feel him lose all the air in his chest from her attack. He fell down instantly and she heard a rib or possibly two crack from the pressure.

"Fu...." she heard him try to cuss, but the lack of air left him unable to utter another sound. She yanked her bulletproof cape up as a shield just in time to block a barrage of almost silent bullets coming from the ceiling. She looked upward to see not one, but two shooters, Black Spider, and Deadshot, both of them firing everything they had at her. She threw her Batarang at them, knocking them both off of the roof, but Deadshot gracefully ziplined the window just in time to allow himself to land on his own two feet. Black Spider on the other hand simply rolled into the pavement, allowing his back to take the brunt of the pressure. He stood back up instantaneously as though he hadn't fallen three stories. Batgirl had heard of Black Spider from Batman's reports but she'd never faced him personally. His reputation for durability seemed to be well-earned.

She closed in on them before they could fire another shot. A Batarang in one hand and a baton in the other she took them on relatively well, but she worried that she wouldn't be able to take them both on at once. Deadshot used his rifle as a club, jabbing at her with the butt of the gun and prodding forward with the bayonet of it. Black Spider, on the other hand, a practiced martial artist, used his feet more than his hands. She recognized his fighting style, a Brazilian martial art known as capoeira. She was immediately growing fatigued from dodging Black Spider's spinning kicks at her knees, and only managed to protect herself from Deadshot's bayonet using her cape as a shield, a cape that was covered in a thin layer of titanium steel. She ziplined away in retreat after she heard a massive body barrelling behind her. She'd jumped out of the way just in time to see Bane, who nearly ran into Deadshot himself, crashing through the fight. Tired from dodging, she almost fell down when she landed several feet away from them. She tripped but managed to catch her footing long enough to stabilize herself. Bane, Deadshot, and Black Spider all turned around to face her. Much to her horror, the man covered in bullseye insignias stood up as well, panting from pain but smiling from ear to ear.

She hated to admit it to herself, but she couldn't fight all of these men at once. Three of them were some of the strongest thugs that Gotham had ever seen, and the guy with the bullseye logo seemed to be more than capable of taking a beating. Even Batman would have trouble with this fight on his own. No wonder they were able to kill the Maronis so effortlessly.

She had to retreat. Batgirl grimaced at the thought. Retreating felt like cowardice, but she had no choice. Bane launched himself forward like a torpedo. Behind him, Deadshot cocked his rifle, Bullseye yanked out a throwing knife, and Black Spider pulled out two revolvers. Batgirl threw down another smoke bomb and vanished before their eyes.

* * *

Matt woke up with the worst headache that he's had in a long time. He was accustomed to getting roughed around as Daredevil, but this was over the top even by his standards. He expected to be tied down, or locked behind a cell but was surprised to find that he was lying comfortably in a bed, free to walk around. The bed was made of fine silk, because of course it was. The room itself was bigger than the rental house that Matt had grown up in. Matt would have rolled his eyes if he could see. He got up groggily and noticed that he was still wearing the Daredevil costume, albeit without his cowl. A moment of panic kicked in when he realized that the Waynes must know his identity. The moment went away when he remembered that he now knew theirs. They couldn't reveal him to the press unless they wanted the same done to them.

The bedroom door opened and Matt prepared himself for another fight. He had his fists up in a boxing pose. A soft, older British accent laughingly said "Now now Mr. Murdock, no need to fight me as well. I'm only here to clean the bedsheets. The fighting is over for now." Judging from the voice it was a man in his late seventies or possibly his early eighties. The accent sounded English, London to be exact. Matt correctly assumed him to be the butler. He stepped aside and let the old Englishman gather the sheets. "My my, Master Dick must have been rather harsh to you. You bled into the bedsheets. Well, I'd say that you're even considering the beating you gave young Tim." He sounded haughty, as though he were scolding a child for a playground brawl. Matt was annoyed with his tone but said nothing about it. He picked his cowl off of the nearby desk and stormed out. The old Englishman scoffed as Matt walked out.

Matt grunted painfully as he put on his Daredevil cowl, his head still aching from the pain from the previous fight. Even the soft touch of his cowl felt like Nightwing was punching him yet again. He stormed through the hallway in a violent search for the Waynes. He walked so fast and so determinedly that he almost walked past them in the dining room. Nightwing, who he now knew to be Dick Grayson, Robin, who he knew to be Tim Drake, and Bruce Wayne himself were all sitting together dining on what he determined to be grilled duck judging from the smell.

Heat radiated from Tim Drake's face, Matt figured this to mean that Tim was scowling at him with boyish hatred. "Oh, sleeping beauty finally wakes up! Let's have a second round, Daredevil is it? You'll find that I'm more of a handful when you don't have the element of surprise!" Tim jumped up from his seat holding his silverware in a threatening manner. Matt didn't move. He knew that the old man wasn't going to let a repeat of last night happen again.

"Sit down Tim." He heard Bruce Wayne say.

"But Bruce..." Tim whined.

"I said sit down." Matt could hear Tim's heart skip a bit. Bruce must have stared Tim down, enough to intimidate him into putting off his revenge for now. Tim huffed and slammed back into the seat. He hacked at the meat violently on his plate, likely still staring at Matt angrily. Bruce gestured for Matt to take a seat before forgetting that he was blind. With emotion in his voice that sounded more like a command then a request Bruce said "You should take a seat as well. We have something to talk about."

"You think I trust you enough to sit next to you? To hell with that, I want answers." Matt yelled. Dick turned cold, his heart beating so rapidly that Matt thought that he'd lunge across the table at him, but he didn't move. Instead, judging from his breathing, he was eyeing Matt with calculation. This unnerved Matt a lot more than Robin's immature little outburst. Tim was about to say something before Bruce shushed him.

"Young man," Bruce said, "you've entered my home unannounced. You attacked one of my sons. You risked the security of all of us, who knows if you were followed or not. And yet you have the balls to yell at my family in our own household? I've half a mind to lock you away in Blackgate, but you and I are at a crossroads aren't we?"

"I'd say so" Matt snarkily replied. "I know your identity, but you know mine as well. So neither of us can turn the other in. Looks like you have to just watch helplessly as I walk out of here." Matt turned halfway before Bruce annoyedly yelled back.

"Stop!" Despite himself, Matt turned back around to see what Bruce had to say. "I need to know for certain that you aren't going to do anything to hurt my family. Everything that you've found has to remain a secret, at all costs. If you do that, then I'll allow you to go back to New York unharmed." Bruce's tone was stoic, but Matt could tell desperation when he heard it. Bruce was in more dire need of Matt's silence than the other way around. Matt actually smiled at that fact, which made Dick Grayson go even colder.

Matt wanted to come off as threatening but he wasn't willing to lie about his intentions. "I have no respect for you Mr. Wayne, or should I say, Batman. But I'd never out a man's family at the risk of their safety. As long as you don't threaten my own anonymity then for now at least, you don't have anything to worry about." He could hear Bruce and Dick both sigh with relief at that, although Bruce attempted to hide his. Bruce started to cough loudly. The cough of an old man that had been wounded in battle. Dick got up from his seat and started to pat Bruce on the back. After a few moments, Bruce waved Dick away as he was finishing his coughing fit. He sat back up, looking back at Matt, and Matt could tell from everyone's worried heartbeat in the room that Batman was not in a good condition.

"You're never going back out there as Batman are you?" Matt asked. "You've been broken. Was it that fight with that clown a while back that did you in? Joker was it?"

Everyone in the room grew silent. Clearly Nightwing and Robin didn't want people to know about Batman's health. They wanted people to think that any day now Batman was going to come back and make Gotham safe. That day was never going to come. "Yes," Bruce finally replied. "Joker is back at Arkham now, where he belongs, but it took a lot out of me. I'm getting too old for this. If you outted us now we'd be ruined, and these new vigilantes would just grow more encouraged."

Matt took a seat next to Bruce. "I already said I'm not going to out you guys, but that doesn't mean that I'm ok with you. I still have problems with you and your family. I don't like the way your company is running things around Gotham."

Tim scoffed loudly but Bruce silenced him yet again. "You mean Wayne Industries? I lost control of that company a long time ago. I'm just an aging poster boy for them now. Sure I manage to funnel my Batman supplies through the company, I've even managed to bribe a few of the employees into looking the other way, but everything else that goes on in that company is under the control of corrupt pencil pushers who can't wait for me to finally croke and die." Bruce grunted back another cough before continuing. "As if that isn't bad enough we got four new vigilantes running loose in Gotham who thinks that open murder is the same thing as heroism. They've already killed some of the most prominent criminals in Gotham, and if they continue there will be enough blood in the streets to fill the gutters. Just when we were starting to get a hold on things you break into my house and beat the shit out of my youngest son."

Tim shuffled in his seat at the remark, he didn't like hearing that he'd been beaten. Matt bitterly replied "Your son isn't exactly innocent here. He attacked me first, remember? Yeah, I broke into your home, but how many homes has he broken into during his investigations? How many have you broken into? I just reacted the way anyone would, self-defense was my only concern."

Bruce waved his hand as though he could wipe away the conversation. "Nevermind that," Bruce said. "I'm willing to let bygones be bygones if you just go home."

"But Bruce!" Tim yelled.

Bruce Wayne glared at Tim as his only reply. Tim grunted in protest but stopped talking.

Matt Murdock sat back in his seat and said "I don't know if I can do that. Go back to New York I mean."

Bruce didn't like hearing that. Although Matt couldn't hear it, judging from the sound of air blowing out of his nose like steam he could tell that Bruce was giving him one of Batman's famous angry scowls. In a militant tone, Bruce asked "Why? You have no reason to stay here?"

Matt attempted to sound diplomatic in reply to ease the conversation. "Look I know we started off on the wrong foot, hell we started off as wrong as two people could possibly get, but you guys look like you need some help. I don't like you any more than you like me, but if these vigilantes are killing as many people as you say then I can't sit by and let that happen, especially if you're too weak to do anything about it yourself." That last statement was the wrong choice of words.

"Weak?" Bruce bellowed. "We've handled far worse than this before. I don't need some kid attorney from Hell's Kitchen telling me how to run my own city. We'll handle this situation without you. Leave Gotham before we make you leave the same way we make all idiotic vigilantes leave" Dick and Tim stood up from their seat aggressively, as an open threat.

Matt wanted to say something threatening in reply but thought better of it. It wasn't that he was afraid, but he felt that another feud with the Waynes would be pointless, especially if there was indeed more pressing criminals to be concerned about in this city. He glared at them angrily, his polite tone not matching his bitter expression. "I apologize for the intrusion Mr. Wayne. I'll find my own way out of here." Bruce propped himself up with his cane to shake Matt's hand. Both of them squeezed the other's hand with needless strength, each one trying to discreetly outmatch the other's stamina.

Both eventually pulled away from the handshake with reddened hands, neither one showing any sign of pain. Matt turned to walk away, but as he did so he remarked "If you excuse me, I'll be leaving your home now, but I won't be leaving Gotham anytime soon."


	6. The Devil and the Spider

Eddie went back to work pretending that everything was normal. She had to hold herself back from giving in to her notorious paranoia. Eddie almost stayed home in a moment of panic, worried that someone from Wayne Industries had somehow found out about her dealings with Harvey Dent and Matt Murdock. Despite her initial panic she told herself that it would be even more suspicious if she stayed home. Besides, these men were too idiotic to suspect anything. They all assumed that a young girl like her was too simple to understand the obvious flaws in their shady dealings. Their arrogance worked in her favor. 

She told herself this, but it did little to make herself calm. Her idiotic boss, a fat man who often dressed "casually" in a business shirt and no tie, noticed her discomfort when she came in but either misunderstood her mood or simply didn't care. He told her "You should smile Eddie, you look prettier when you smile" and shot her a wink, his blubbery face and fake blonde hair moving erratically at the gesture. Although he was an unfit and unattractive man his wealth convinced him otherwise. He had an unnatural spray tan that made his misshapen face stand out that much more. His teeth were shined white to an unholy degree, practically glowing whenever he pompously smiled at her, and she could feel his beady eyes follow her backside as she stormed past him. It took every bit of her willpower not to scowl at him. 

Through gritted teeth, she stopped and turned back around. "I'm sorry Mr. Flanders sir. I've just been having a busy week. How's your morning?" she said with her best impression of a girly airhead's voice. As she asked him this she smiled glowingly the way that powerful men like women to smile at them. She hated behaving this way but Wayne Industries was no place for women to act powerfully, there were too many insecure men here. Flanders just smiled back condescendingly. His eyes openly looked her up and down. It didn't matter that he had a wife, a wife that was ten years younger than him Eddie noted because in his mind Eddie was an extension of his property. She knew that eventually he'd either ask her out or make a move on her. The thought disgusted her to her core. 

After Flanders excused her she went back to her desk and started on some paperwork, papers that were meant for Flanders to fill out but he was too lazy to do, so he had pawned them off onto her. Just like last time they were papers that Flanders really shouldn't have given her. They were papers that had been given to Flanders as an oversight by his equally lazy superior who also wasn't supposed to have it, and so in return was pawned onto Flanders for completion and Flanders had given the work as a consequence to her. It was a trail of laziness going down the food chain. Wayne Industries was more of a leaking ship than a business at this point. Eddie looked through the paperwork, doing her best to hide the fact that she was covertly documenting the information. She waited for the blubbering buffoon Flanders to leave for his lunchbreak before she printed off a copy of the papers and hid them in her bag. Keeping such sensitive information in her bag made her worry even more, but it was doubtful that any of the men she worked under would bother to look. 

Flanders finally came back from his lunchbreak thirty minutes late, likely because he was flirting with another secretary upstairs. She asked him if she could go out for lunch now, and barely waited for his reply when she sprung from her desk and made for the elevator. A moment alone in the elevator was what she needed to calm her nerves. She let out a huge sigh of relief, more like a burst of panic, as she arched her back and rested with her hands on her knees, breathing heavily. The elevator around her seemed to shrink. "What the fuck are you doing Eddie? You could get sued for this" she said to herself. Eddie wanted to get the papers to Harvey Dent as fast as possible and get back to work but was unsure if her nerves would last that long. She jerked back up and put on her best impression of a calm and collected secretary as the elevator opened up again. She stepped out of the elevator onto the first floor just as another duo of suited morons stepped in, both men glancing at Eddie's figure as she stepped past them, not even bothering to hide their objectifying glares. One of them pretended to whisper to the other about her appearance, but in truth, he had purposely said it loud enough for her to hear it. "I'd like to have a taste of that ginger if you feel me," he said to the other, a joke that was only dumb enough for another Wayne lackey to understand. Eddie rolled her eyes and kept walking, knowing that they were likely still staring at her as the elevator doors closed. 

Eddie stormed towards the exit and wasn't paying attention. In her moment of ignorance, she ran into one of the top employees at Wayne Industries, Lucious Fox. Her bag fell over and papers flew everywhere. "Fuck!" she screamed in a panic. She lept to the ground like an animal and scooped the papers into her arms. 

"Sorry about that miss," Lucius said in an alarmed tone. He made a gesture like he wanted to help but she just waved him away. 

"No no I've got it!" she nearly yelled as she said this. She crumbled all of the paperwork into her bag in a wad and sprinted for the exit doors. Lucius just shook his head in disbelief, not sure what to think about this new generation of Wayne employees. 

As Eddie left Lucius Fox looked down and saw that she had forgotten a sheet. He looked up to alert her about it but she was already out the door. He rolled his eyes and bent down to pick it up, hurting his aging back in the process. He groaned loudly, and with great effort picked up the paper. He straightened his glasses and squinted as he narrowed his ancient eyes on the paper. Lucius' curiosity turned to alarm as he read the contents of the paper. Lucius Fox, the one man at Wayne Industries who knew that Bruce Wayne was Batman, just found out that Eddie Nygma knew too much about the darker side of the company. 

* * *

Matt was on the hunt. He usually preferred to track men down at night, but he was pressed for time. Matt knew that if he waited until night Batman or his lackeys might find him and attack him again. There was also the fact that Black Spider was also a better fighter at night, so Matt hoped that by tracking him during the day he'd catch Black Spider at a disadvantage. Matt still wanted to straighten things out between him and the Batfamily but that could wait. For the moment he was more concerned with stopping the four vigilantes that were plaguing Gotham. 

He made his way to the Little Jamaica neighborhood of Gotham, a part of town reputable for its exotic food and lively music. In recent years the neighborhood's crime rate had essentially become nonexistent thanks to Black Spider's habit of killing off local drug dealers and gangsters, much to Batman's dismay. He could smell exotic food being served by street vendors, and energetic music was being blasted from every corner. Men laughed in a mixture of English and Jamaican Patois. It reminded Matt of the Caribbean neighborhoods in New York. 

According to the police report that he'd skimmed that morning the Black Spider, also known as Eric Needham, was often seen hanging out at a place called Little Kingston, a popular bar in the neighborhood. Needham's vigilante lifestyle had kept the bar relatively safe from criminal activity, but the people who frequented the bar were also notoriously hostile towards superheroes due to their affiliation with Needham. Matt had to admit, while he didn't like Black Spider's methods, he could sense the lack of crime in the area. He couldn't smell a drug for miles. He hadn't heard a single gun being cocked, nor could he hear any notorious conversations being held anywhere nearby. The neighborhood was, in fact, one of the cleanest in Gotham. Matt was begrudgingly impressed but also disgusted. It was one thing for a vigilante to make villains afraid of him, that was one thing Batman and Daredevil had in common, but for Black Spider to kill anyone who stepped out of line was tyrannical. He ruled this neighborhood out of fear, essentially keeping the men living there tame by pointing a gun at all of them. Creating stability out of fear of death sounded like something a thug like Kingpin would do. 

Matt decided to dress more inconspicuously, choosing to go as Matt Murdock instead of Daredevil. He went with Harvey to a local creole restaurant which was said to be in a relatively "crime free" neighborhood. Matt figured that this must be the place where Black Spider had the most influence since this neighborhood was virtually spotless, only an area that was constantly surveyed by a murderous vigilante could maintain this degree of cleanliness. Matt was so focused on listening to the sounds and smells around him, surveying them for any sign or indication of the Black Spider, that he failed to notice Harvey rambling on about the Wayne case that he was supposed to be helping him investigate. 

"Hello Matt? Are you in there?" Harvey instinctively waved his hand in front of Matt, momentarily forgetting his blindness in his irritation. "I was asking you what you thought of Eddie's situation. Did you find anything out yesterday?" 

"Oh sorry Harvey. My mind was somewhere else. No unfortunately I couldn't find anything. Wayne keeps a tight lid on his activities. Other than what Eddie has already told us I'm afraid I'm at a loss." This was a lie of course, but Matt couldn't exactly tell Harvey about how he'd broke into Wayne Manor the night before dressed as a devil. Harvey was suspicious of something, Matt could tell based on his sudden change in heartbeat. 

"Yeah I can tell Wayne wasn't exactly on your mind yesterday Matt. I know you can't see it but the rest of us would have to be as blind as you are to miss the giant bruises covering your damn skull. Jesus man did you get into a fight with a wall?" Mat had been dreading that question. He knew that Harvey would notice the battle scars from the night before. It didn't help that Matt had only slept for a few hours.

He had thought of a good lie for the situation but in his moment of panic he suddenly fumbled his words. "I....uh...sorry Harv....I went out drinking last night and some guys....they could tell by my accent that I was from out of town you see..." 

Harvey let out a chuckle. "Say no more Matt. Gothamites aren't fond of New Yorkers. They think you guys are too white collar. I hope you hurt them more than they hurt you." He laughed again and went on about the case. "Now I spoke with Eddie today over the phone. She seemed a little shook up, even more than she usually is. I don't think she's handling the stress of this too well. If we don't tread lightly I'm afraid she'll panic and back out of the investigation, then all we'll have is some evidence without a witness to confirm it. Normally I'd take what we have, but even with the damning evidence that Eddie has provided us, as well trained as Wayne's arsenal of lawyers are I'm afraid that without a key witness we'll get trampled in court and.....Matt are you listening?" 

Matt had zoned off again. He'd picked up a scent that stood out to him. The scent of gunpowder. He'd smelled a rifle when he walked in, resting underneath the register where the cashier sat, but chose to ignore it since it was likely only there to protect the restaurant, but another firearm suddenly caught his attention. Rather, a couple of firearms caught his attention. Matt could tell by the proximity of the smell that both handguns were being carried by the same man. He guessed that they were probably revolvers. Black Spider, or Needham as he was also known, came into the restaurant and stormed upstairs, and the entire restaurant went deathly quiet as he did so. Even Harvey stopped talking long enough for Matt to focus his senses on where the man went. He could hear him upstairs talking with someone else on the phone. "Yes I heard you. Look you think we didn't try to kill her? I know she's just a girl but that little bitch is more of a fighter than she looks! Batgirl has been a thorn in my side for years, I've known her a lot longer than I've known you. Even without Batman she's a lot of trouble, we're going to have to catch her by surprise if we want to take her down. After that we'll have that Nightwing to deal with, then Gotham will be ours. Robin? Yeah he's a nuisance but he won't be much trouble to us as a group. Bane and Deadshot alone could handle that little snot-nosed punk. Oh my god we're back on her again. Look get off my back about Batgirl. Yeah I heard you, one girl versus four guys sounds one sided but you don't know this chick. She's almost as much of a prick as Batman is, and she's a lot faster."

The conversation went on like that for a few more minutes, getting more and more violent as they went on. Harvey tried to get Matt's attention again but he maintained his focus on trying to determine who Needham was speaking with. "I don't care! I'm not a hitman. You and I want the same thing Cobblepot! We both want a safe Gotham, but if you want me to kill the Batgirl you're going to have to sweeten the deal. We'll speak in person about it tonight, and you better have a better offer by the time we meet up." Matt could hear Needham slam his cellphone across the room upstairs as he collapsed onto a bed. 

That was all Matt needed to hear. He jumped up from the table and threw money down to pay for his meal. "Sorry Harvey but I just remembered something. I have to go...it's about the case." Harvey was openly annoyed with Matt's sudden change in attitude. 

"What the hell Matt? We just started talking and now you want to leave?" 

"I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you Harvey. It's important I promise" and with that Matt was gone. Needham had quickly fallen asleep upstairs, apparently the owner of the restaurant let him hide out there during the day. Matt wasn't going to overhear much else from him today but he'd learned enough for now. He'd learned the name of whoever his employer was, the name of whoever was funding the execution of criminals in Gotham. Now he just needed to learn who Cobblepot was. 


End file.
